How to communicate
“One clear communication should be agreed by all stakeholders involved. This will ensure that the recipients trust and engage with the information. Often a communication about a significant event will require collaboration between the IT department and/or the central communication unit and your institution’s senior management team.
The communication should be homogenous and seamless, so that wherever it is being disseminated or consumed - at other campuses, on the ground at service desks, over the phone, on the other side of the world - it is an authoritative, single source. This reduces the possibility of misinterpretation. Ensure the content is consistent with the branding of your department and wider organisation, and check that you have followed any policies your institution may have on how to communicate significant events.
The next step is to think who is the best person or group to give the message. If you found that your institution’s VLE was unavailable during an assignment deadline window, you may want to send an all staff/student email explaining the lack of service and detailing how to arrange an extension to submission deadlines. In this instance the communication would inspire more confidence if sent by a senior academic colleague, than from IT Services.”
Emma Barwell | IT Information and Communications Manager, Oxford Brookes University
Further pages in this section:
Resources
External links
- Using social media during a technical infrastructure upgrade University of Sheffield
- 12 Days of IT Security - Christmas Twitter messages Leeds Beckett University
- Remote support – Presentation from Cardiff University at UCISA Support Services Conference 2014 Cardiff University
- Using chatbots for clearing Leeds Beckett University
- Text messages for change notifications Janet text service
Downloads
- Communications Operational Plan University of Bath File type: PDF
- IT Service Catalogue University of the Arts London File type: PDF
- IT Communications Portfolio University of the Arts London File type: PDF
- IT Services Communication Approach University of the Arts London File type: PDF
- Online Engagement Infographic Leeds Beckett University File type: PNG
- Service Desk Metrics and Feedback infographic Leeds Beckett University File type: PDF
- IT Services Social Media Strategy University of the Arts London File type: PDF
- IT Services Social Media Guidelines University of the Arts London File type: PDF
- 12 Days of IT Security Leeds Beckett University File type: PDF
- Writing User-Facing Knowledge Base Articles University of Manchester File type: PDF
- Consistent Terminology for User-facing IT Communication University of Manchester File type: PDF
- IT Services Writing and Visual Guidelines Cheat Sheet University of Manchester File type: PDF
- Internal Communications Toolkit University of Salford File type: PDF
- “Tell IS” Graphics Heriott-Watt University File type: JPG
- Start of Term Engagement Graphics University of Brighton File type: PDF
- Enablement Evaluation Template Cardiff University File type: PDF
- Communications Plan Heriott-Watt University File type: PDF
- IT communications and engagement University of the Arts London File type: PDF
- Social Media Training University of York File type: PDF
- Moving IT Communications to the centre study University of York File type: PDF
- Communications approach for lecture recording University of Edinburgh File type: PDF
- Communications plan for lecture recording University of Edinburgh File type: PDF